When I was but a wee child, I knew that what I wanted to be when I Grew UP was a Science Fiction Writer. Also, a paramedic. And an amateur detective. And an X-Wing pilot. And... well, it doesn't much matter. I Grew UP, and decided that being a Philosopher would be far more practical and lucrative. Then I Grew UP some more, and started writing.

It's still a toss up whether Philosophy or Writing will prove to be more lucrative.

Latest Projects

Unlikely Story - an online fiction magazine, edited by A.C. Wise and Bernie Mojzes, with art direction by Linda Saboe. Unlikely Story grew out of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, and is the umbrella name for a variety of unlikely subjects, including the recurring issues of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology and The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography, and one-off issues such as The Journal of Unlikely Cartography and The Journal of Unlikely Architecture.

Kudzu, a Novel - an online serial novel about invasive species, genetic modification, talking raccoons and the end of the world. Written by Bernie Mojzes, art by Linda Saboe. [Temporarily on haitus.]

The Flesh Made Word - I am editing an erotic anthology about the act of writing, and being written upon. Submissions are now closed, and we're in the editing stage.

2013

Under the Paper - in Wild Violet 10th Anniversary Anthology (Wild Violet) - forthcoming
I lived in a house in Germantown which carried the ghosts of both the dead and the living hidden under the wallpaper, and hidden in nooks and crannies throughout the house. I lived across the street from a man whose family, when he died, came by and dumped everything that was him - including his original drawings - out on the street so they could sell the house. (Jumping Rope in Fitler Square will also be reprinted in this anthology.)

The Sinister Scones: A Prelude - bonus story in the 3rd Edition of The Evil Gazebo (Dark Quest Books) - forthcoming
- Contrary to what common sense tells us, Aunt Imperia and Aunt Kindle were not always aunts.

The Power of Her Position - in Clockwork Chaos (Dark Quest Books) - November 2013
- One of the joys of researching antique technologies is discovering the brilliant names given things. Even before we learned that the human nervous system is an electrical system, someone dubbed one type of electrical generator an "Influence Machine."
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes&Noble][Nook][Powells]

The Taste of Gold - in Big Pulp's Apeshit! - August 2013
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes&Noble][Powells]
- This one is inspired by beer. And monkeys. And trickster gods.

Embarrassing Relations - cowritten with Bob Norwicke, in A Bard in the Hand (Double Dragon Publishing) - May 2013
- This was one of the most fun stories I've had the pleasure of writing (or co-writing, in this case). I hope you find it as much fun to read.
[Amazon][Barnes & Noble][Nook][Powells]

2012

Raw Materials - in Crossed Genres Quarterly Review #4 - January 2012
- This was the first story I ever submitted. Fortunately, it was rejected then, because when I looked back at it, it totally sucked, but still retained something compelling that just needed me to learn how to write to unsully it. I let it sit, then rewrote it. And here it is. Tada.
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes & Noble][Nook][Powells]

Facing the Wind - in Spells & Swashbucklers (Dragon Moon Press) - May 2012
- A pirate ship built from a mini-golf course, sailing across the desolate American desert, all-devouring demons howling in pursuit. I really loved writing in this world, and suspect that this will be the first in a series of related stories.
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes & Noble][Nook]

Kudzu, A Prologue - in Galactic Creatures (Dark Quest Books) - May 2012
- Sir Reginald F. Grump XXIII, pornographer extraodinaire and avowed celibate, makes his debut public appearance. Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of him. In case it was unclear, this story is related to my online novel, Kudzu.
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes & Nobel][Nook][Powells]

A Domestic Disturbance - in Nth Degree online - September 20, 2012
- Are the Gods the model for the modern dysfunctional family? Or do we make the Gods in our families' image?

Erotica (warning: excessive naughty bits - you should not even consider reading these if you are a kid, or my parents, or don't like reading excessive naughty bits)

2011

The Winter Court - in In an Iron Cage (Dark Quest Books) - July 2011
- When I was little, I used to climb up on a stack of books to reach the topographic globe sitting on my dad's bookshelf. I'd pull it down to the ground and sit down in front of it; back then, the world was bigger than me. I'd spin it as fast as I could (it took two hands!) and touch it with my finger, dragging it to a stop. And then my dad would read the name of the place my finger was on, and tell me a little about that place. Reading The Earthsea Trilogy reinforced my love of maps, and there was a time when my goal in life was to be a cartographer. Maps don't just reflect reality. There's a sense in which they define it, where the lines on the map grow into roads and great walls and fences and border crossings, and things on one side of a line on a map grow vastly different from things on the other side. Also as a child, I remember crossing the border from Austria to Czechoslovakia: everything turned grey. It's really not much of a stretch to make the correlation of drawing a map to change reality a bit more direct. I still have that globe. The world it shows is much smaller now. But it's still bigger than my head.
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes & Noble][Nook][Powells]

Bad Debts - in Tales of Fortannis: A Bard's Eye View (Double Dragon Publishing) - May 2011
- Spawned from a bad pun, this story was supposed to be a comedic, slapstick High Fantasy romp. It seems my concept of ‘high fantasy’ looks more like Jersey shore detective noir urban fantasy comic tragedy stuck in a blender with lovecraftian horror, but such is life, love and tentacles. Of the original concept, only the puns remain.
[Amazon][Kindle][Barnes & Noble][Powells]

The Ritual of Names in Prague in the Last Days of the New Empire - in Daily Science Fiction - September 16th, 2011
- The nature of Empire is to fall; that is the one trait universal to all empires. What truly defines an empire is not the glory of its ascendence, or the peak of its accomplishments, but how it behaves in its decline. And that is something that can only ever be understood through the individual stories of the people caught in that tide.

Erotica (warning: excessive naughty bits - you should not even consider reading these if you are a kid, or my parents, or don't like reading excessive naughty bits)

A Perfect Creature - in Like a Vorpal Blade (Circlet Press) - March 2011
- When I first saw the call for submissions for Alice in Wonderland themed erotica, I was amused. I mentioned it to a friend. She said, "You know, caterpillars could be the new cephalopods." Which sounded like an interesting challenge.
[Amazon][Circlet]

On Arid Seas - In Like a Treasure Found (Circlet Press) - September 6th, 2011
- This is a prequel to Facing the Wind, with all the naughty pirate bits you've come to hope to see. It takes place years before the first story, and details how some of the characters came to join the crew. So to speak. Ironically, the prequel is scheduled to see print before the original story, which makes the prequel the prequel of its sequel.. or, rather, the original is the sequel of the first story which is the prequel of the sequel of... um. I give up.
[Amazon][Powells][Circlet]

2010

The Path That Few Have Trod - in Trail of Indiscretion, issue 10 (Fortress Publishing, Inc.) - Winter 2010
- My Sweeney Todd is as unlike Johnny Depp, or any other variant I've seen, as possible. Not cuddly and lovable, exactly. But if you want someone with whom to sip a fine merlot and bitch about the latest in celebrity fashion, he's your man.
[Fortress]

It Was Just Like Her - in Cemetery Moon, issue 6 (Fortress Publishing, Inc.) - June 2010
- One of my older stories, it came to me some time in the wee hours driving home from Pittsburgh after a long few days of work and driving and not nearly enough sleep. At a certain level of sleep deprivation, reality left-shifts into something else. Who's to say that's not also reality?
[Fortress]

The Levee Song - in Barbarians at the Jumpgate (Padwolf Publishing) - May 2010
- A culture without nouns, in which actions and the intermediate states of becoming of a thing are more important than nailing down the identity of the thing-in-itself (Ding an sich), collides catastrophically with hyper-capitalism. I play a lot in this story with gender identity, personal identity, and species identity. And I get to reference one of my favorite songs.
[Amazon][Barnes & Noble][Powells]

Thus The Trap - in Dragon's Lure (Dark Quest Books) - May 2010
- How do you write a story about a dragon that hasn't been written a thousand times before? You research. And you discover a strange myth from a small part of what is now Russia--a dragon that takes human form and seduces men and women to produce progeny. And then you start thinking about what the family tree is going to look like, and wondering why the dragon needs both men and women. Add a couple stoners and a couple dragonslayers, and you got a story.
[Amazon][Barnes & Noble][Powells]

Kashrut - in New Blood (Padwolf Publishing) - May 2010
- When I first started writing, I swore I would never write a vampire story. So when I was approached to write a vampire story, I immediately said, "Okay." And then I swore I'd never write a Sexy Vampire story. I think I succeeded at that, at least.
[Amazon][Barnes & Noble][Powells]

The Morning After - Bad-Ass Faeries Online - December 24, 2010
- Ever come in to work one morning when the closing crew decided to go out back and get stoned instead of cleaning up? For some reason, the mess always looks worse in the morning, and takes longer to clean up. Especially if there's food or drink involved.

The Collector - in Dead Souls (Morrigan Books) - September 19th, 2009 - ORDER from Amazon
- I wrote this late at night in the hotel room at Balticon in 2008, my brain sort of mushing around the battlefield scene of Pulanski's MacBeth and the Baba Yaga stories my mom used to tell me. In Slavic mythologies, the crone in the woods is sometimes harmful and sometimes helpful. I don't see Baba Yaga as either benevolent or malevolent. Those are human concepts. She does as she does.
[Amazon][Barnes & Noble][Powells]

Wishing Well - in Liquid Imagination #4 - September 2009 - online
- An experiment in second person prose, inspired by (but utterly unlike) the God Bullies song How Many Times.

The Flavor of the Air - September 16th, 2009 at The Daily Tourniquet - online (no longer available)
- Much of this story actually happened.

Rosie the Riveter Saves the Day! - in Crossed Genres - December 2009 - online
- This was fun to write. I tried to capture the flavor of the earnest-yet-cheesy WWII movies of the 50s — heroism mixed with romance, all good clean fun with a bit of nudge-nudge-wink-wink subtext. Plus tentacles.
[Amazon]

Bottle-caps & Cigarette Butts - in Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad (Marietta Press) - May 2008 (out of print)-- [read excerpt]
- This is the second story I ever submitted. The editor wrote back, saying, "I'm not sure it fits our book, but I'd be happy to extend the deadline if you'd like to submit something else." That story was Moonshine. A little bit later, the same editor wrote back and said, "Actually, would you mind if we used both of your stories?" Twist my arm.

Creative Commons

These stories have been posted online at various times, most likely in my blog. You can find the entire stories for your enjoyment and/or mockery behind the links.

Rum, Bloggary and the Lash

Various musings and blatherings that have dripped from these fingers over the years. Some of it is bloggary musings, some of it some of my more interesting|amusing|odd academic papers out of the cobweb covered file in the back corner.

Real Art Won't Match Your Sofa - December of 2006 I wrote a small rant that garnered a tiny bit of Intarwebs notoriety. Little bit later, Tom Smith wrote a song based on a bit of this essay: Suit of Armor. Lissen to it - it's worthwhile. Some time later, I wrote Than a Peasant Scorned, based on Tom's song.